Fi Munro (34), who lived in Errol, won the hearts of thousands with her bravery and positive attitude since being diagnosed with ovarian cancer four and a half years ago.
Last month she called on her friends and followers not to waste a second of their lives after being told she only had weeks to live.
On Thursday evening, July 16, her husband Ewan confirmed on Facebook that Fi had died “peacefully” on July 7.
A private funeral service has since taken place.
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Heartbroken Ewan told Fi’s 11,000 followers: “She has been such a huge inspiration to all those around her, filling the space with love, compassion, fun...and a little bit of swearing!
“I know she has been an incredible support to all of you out there who follow her Instagram, Facebook and blog and she leaves a huge hole in all our hearts.
“I hope that wherever she is that she gets her wish, to be reunited with friends and family lost, and to have the most amazing time with them all.
“Please don’t send flowers or cards, but instead be inspired by Fi. She asked that you all share and honour your love for her by giving a random act of kindness in her name.”
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Ewan said the family would do something in her honour when the time is right, adding: “Until then, keep doing the special little things: phone a pal, leave flowers on a bench, buy someone a coffee – do whatever you can to make someone else smile.
“Much love – and light to you all, Ewan.”
In the inevitable outpouring of love and sadness that followed her husband’s announcement, one comment left beside a picture of Fi grinning in her wet-suit, surfboard under her arm, summed up the person thousands will miss: “Awesome powerhouse.”
Fi chose to live her cancer experience in the public eye with grit and determination.
She got a terrible introduction to her condition: told by doctors on day one of knowing she was ill that her cancer was terminal.
She chose to talk about it, to begin a conversation with Facebook friends that turned into a book which has been a help to others.
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It turned out Fi was given less than five years to make sense of living and focus on the things that mattered most to her.
It boiled down to sharing love and memories with her devoted husband and wider family, striving to highlight ovarian cancer’s often overlooked symptoms, and simply being kind.
Fi trained as a yoga teacher, specifically to sympathetically help others who were ill to enjoy the body connection of yoga.
Until just a few months ago, she was deepening her training in shamanic healing and went on retreats to expand her knowledge and power in non-conventional ways of repairing body and spirit. Again, instead of going for healing for herself, she learnt how to bring it to others.
The thread of doing things for others and sharing love comes up time and time again.
In Ewan’s message to her blog followers and supporters, he asked that they best remember her by carrying out random acts of kindness, regularly and in memory of Fi.
Mondays had been her day for a random act of kindness since her diagnosis brought a spiritual reawakening to her.
People going out and doing nice things for no logical reason is a small thing that will continue to give pleasure and create gratitude for her life for many years to come.
Her philosophy was ‘who knows, a book left for someone to find on a bench, ordering an extra cup of tea for someone who has not yet come in and revealed a need, it all puts good back into our interconnected world’.
The reality of Fi’s worsening condition required she had many operations. The first bout of chemo robbed her of her blonde hair, but she responded by swearing and braving the no hat look until it grew back.
She took on the loss of various organs with dignity and passed off the alterations to her 30-something body with remarkable calm.
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Her sharing of the ‘skin she was in’ went as far as stripping to her teal-coloured undies and handing flowers out to bemused pedestrians in central Glasgow.
Fi explained that the deep teal green bra and pants (the letters t,e,a and l are an acronym for the four main signs of cancer of the ovaries) had been specially made for her in Perthshire and she recommended the company as making great products that made body disfigurement from cancer less of a burden.
The bra stunt was to highlight ovarian cancer and the pictures of the day show her lit up with smiles despite being half naked in a city downpour.
Fi took her ovarian cancer awareness message to Westminster and attended events to unify and support charities connected to all the cancers that affect women.
She breezily broadcast live to her blog friends from her train carriage seat on the way home, despite having spent an exhausting day working and networking for the cause.
Typically beginning with “Hello my Luvlies,” Fi’s warm-hearted messages came regularly from all kinds of places – a festival where she had been asked to speak about her book, at home with her pets, hospital car parks, on a beach enjoying the sea spray and many times from her beloved camper van.
Ewan and Fi got the most out of the times when she enjoyed better health and last summer they set off to see around Scotland’s rugged North coast, just the two of them in the jaunty yellow van.
Never one to miss current affairs and again looking beyond her own health dilemma to help others, Phd graduate Fi started a change.org petition to ensure that Brexit would not compromise the chance for UK cancer patients to be involved in new drugs trials linked to other European countries.
The petition was growing gradually when she got a disappointing knock-back in the form of coronavirus. All petitions to the UK Government closed overnight as parliament was hurriedly shut down with the beginning of lockdown.
Even when her own drugs treatment was withdrawn because it was not deemed to be working, Fi wanted it that reality came above any self pity.
She allowed a picture of herself taking refuge in the bath between bouts of nausea to be published in the PA.
The unposed ‘behind-closed-doors’ image taken by Ewan sent out a powerful message of solidarity to others getting a kicking from living day to day with cancer.
At the time she emphasised that those who called her ‘brave’ or commented that she looked well and healthy in some of her pictures were choosing to look past the exhausted person she saw in the mirror and almost forcing an “I’m fine” deflection of the truth.
So it was fitting that the last on-camera message Fi that she put out in the world last month had her quipping that she resembled one of the charming yellow cartoon characters, the Minions, in her yellow T-shirt.
She gave thanks for her healthcare through the years, thanked her husband and family and said her goodbyes.
Love will be her legacy.
An awesome powerhouse indeed.
